See Jonathan Kay’s X thread on the queering of outdoor education.  

The British Columbia Teachers’ Federation (BCTF) has introduced a framework termed “Queering Outdoor Education,” which integrates queer theory, drag pedagogy, and decolonial approaches into environmental learning. This curriculum comprises lessons that encourage students to interpret natural phenomena through the lens of fluid identities, anti-normative critique, and social justice. While the framework is promoted as fostering inclusivity and challenging colonial and heteronormative assumptions, it raises substantive concerns regarding developmental appropriateness, educational clarity, and the potential for early ideological enculturation.

Metaphor and Conceptual Instability

The initial lessons employ metaphor as a primary pedagogical tool. Students are encouraged to draw analogies between natural elements—such as clouds, logs, or plants—and human identities, emphasizing fluidity and anti-essentialist perspectives. While metaphor can be valuable in education, these lessons risk overextending conceptual abstraction, replacing concrete environmental observation with ideological instruction. For children, particularly in early or middle childhood, excessive abstraction can hinder cognitive development by conflating empirical phenomena with normative social and political constructs.

Additionally, the curriculum critiques conventional linguistic frames, including metaphors like “birds and the bees,” positioning them as instruments of colonial and heteronormative power. Such framing may introduce complex sociopolitical interpretations into contexts traditionally reserved for foundational biological and ecological learning, potentially overwhelming young learners.

Moralizing Nature and Identity

Subsequent lessons extend these metaphorical frameworks into moral and social instruction. Students are asked to emulate the perceived allyship of natural objects and to conceptualize human identities in terms of ecological hierarchies, categorizing queer identities as “native” and others as “invasive.” While intended to promote reflection on inclusion and belonging, these exercises risk essentializing human worth according to ideologically charged criteria, substituting experiential learning with prescriptive social norms. By conflating ecological systems with social hierarchies, the curriculum may foster confusion rather than ethical understanding, undermining both environmental literacy and social cohesion.

Sexualization and Performative Instruction

The later lessons introduce overtly sexualized and performative elements, including the celebration of non-reproductive animal behaviors and the incorporation of drag-based exercises into outdoor activities. While drag pedagogy emphasizes self-invention and challenges normative binaries, its application to children’s environmental education raises questions of age-appropriateness. Embedding explicit discussions of sexuality and performative gender in contexts intended to cultivate observation, curiosity, and engagement with nature may distract from core learning objectives and impose adult conceptual frameworks onto immature cognitive and moral development.

Implications for Pedagogy

The queering of outdoor education exemplifies a broader pedagogical tension between radical inclusivity and the developmental needs of children. Integrating complex adult theoretical frameworks into early environmental education risks destabilizing students’ conceptual understanding, substituting guided inquiry with ideological instruction. While well-intentioned, such approaches may inadvertently limit children’s capacity for independent exploration, critical reasoning, and unmediated interaction with the natural world. Educational practice promote the idea of equality, not equity, along with the preservation of developmental appropriateness and cognitive accessibility.

 

 

Glossary

  • Queer Pedagogy: An educational approach that incorporates queer theory to challenge traditional assumptions about gender, sexuality, and identity.
  • Drag Pedagogy: A subset of queer pedagogy emphasizing performance, self-invention, and the destabilization of normative social roles.
  • Decolonial Education: Curriculum frameworks aimed at addressing and countering the legacies of colonialism, often by centering Indigenous perspectives.
  • Anti-Normative Critique: A critical approach that questions conventional social, cultural, or gender norms.
  • Cognitive Development: The mental growth and acquisition of knowledge, reasoning, and understanding in children.
  • Ideological Enculturation: The process of instilling a particular worldview or set of political beliefs, often through education.

References

  • British Columbia Teachers’ Federation. Queering Outdoor Education Newsletter. 2025.
  • Lacandona, Gaia. Drag Pedagogy: Performance and Learning. 2018.
  • Polukoshko, Jody. Queer and Decolonial Approaches to Outdoor Learning. BCTF publication, 2024.
  • Sumara, Dennis. Alternative Pedagogies and Cognitive Development: A Critical Review. 2017.

Suggested Readings Critiquing Queer Pedagogy

  • Lindsay, James & McEwen, Bob. Critical Pedagogy and the Limits of Ideological Education. 2021.
  • Wood, Peter. The Manipulation of Youth: How Ideology Enters the Classroom. 2019.
  • Scholes, Robert. Childhood, Ideology, and the Limits of Social Theory. 2018.
  • Davies, Belinda. Rethinking Radical Curricula: Balancing Innovation with Developmental Appropriateness. 2020.